Charles Maria Weber and Chief Jose Jesus
Part 3: A Place Over Time
Review
In the previous section, we learned about Jose Jesus, the Chief of the Yokuts and Miwok peoples of the California Delta. Jose Jesus became good friends with Charles Weber, an immigrant from Germany who was given land in Jose Jesus’s village by the Mexican government. Jose Jesus would help Weber choose where to start a town, which would later become Stockton.
An Old Map
If you look at the map above, you will see that many of the streets in Stockton were originally named after animals. One can see street names for otters, elk, and beavers.
Why do you think Weber named the streets after animals in the area?
How has Stockton Changed?
If you look at the sliding photos above, on the left you will see a painting by Josiah P. Cressy of what Stockton looked like in 1849. Sliding to the right, you can see a photo taken from about the same place, 150 years later, in 2000. What changed during that time? Since Stockton was founded by Charles Weber and Jose Jesus in 1847, the city has grown from a small village to a large city. If you look closely, what has stayed the same about Stockton since it was founded?
What Happened to Charles Weber and Jose Jesus?
After Stockton was founded, the town grew quickly. People coming to California for the gold rush would stop in town for supplies, and some stayed. By 1854, Stockton was the fourth largest town in California. Many people settled to farm the area, because the soil in the Delta was Charles Weber would live in Stockton for the rest of his life – he died there in 1881.
Jose Jesus had a more tragic end. In 1849, two years after helping Weber, a white soldier in Stockton from New York shot Jose Jesus without cause. Charles Weber paid for Jose Jesus’s medical care, and then helped him move to his home in the mountains, near the modern-day town of Valley Springs. Jose Jesus would later be murdered, in 1854. Weber originally named a street in Stockton after Jose Jesus, but the city government changed the name in the 1860s. Today, Jose Jesus has largely been forgotten.